Working on the red Typewriter. Felt like the first time I’ve drawn a full breath in two weeks.

Did more on the individual keys and started on the cover of the New York Times Review of Books. The heads you can see are cartoons of Sandra Day O’Connor, and a Muslim imam. Appropriate for a painting sparked by the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists

Starting a list of titles to make partly visible on the spines of the books. I tend to want to memorialize the books that shaped me as a child since I have been an avid reader since I learned to read.

I’m sorting through the 19,071 photos I’ve got on the iCloud and deleting weird duplications and misfires of the iPhone camera, and sorting what I’m keeping into various folders. This is a huge undertaking, so I’m working on it a little bit every day or so.

In the last couple of weeks I started another painting that’s part of the Catch & Release series. This one’s working title is Flint River Totem. It’s on a 48×24 canvas – big for me.

Here’s the beginning, when it was still as much a drawing than paint.

I did a couple of passes after this, and the best day was when I worked on canvas upside down. Moss and water confuse the hell out of me unless I turn them into a natural abstract. Painting shapes and values is a piece of cake.

Today I placed the titular totem, which I made out of tying antlers and a deer skull together with jute. The totem is really wet now, but there will be a spray of yellow wildflowers coming out of the eye socket, and, of course, all the twine.

Three things about this image called to me. First, the glimpse of the Flint River, the same river that’s in the background of Collateral Damage. I love the sky reflected on the water and how the bend in the river lets your eye travel away into the distance. I expect to see Huck and Jim float by on a raft at any moment. I have always loved the last line of the novel, “But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest…”

Second, the swags of Spanish moss, which we rarely see in Atlanta, but are all over south Georgia. It’s embedded in my childhood memories of the rural south in the summer. Right up there with red clay, chert roads, grape pop-cycles, the sound of cicadas, and the trickle of sweat.

Finally, the totem. It’s what makes it more than a generic landscape for me. It’s bound up with my memories of my father, and my idea of the protective spirit of the place, a genius loci.

In other art-related news, Collateral Damage was accepted in the Metro Montage show. It will be delivered July 2, the show opens July 11, and it will be there until September 9. They sent me two passes, otherwise it costs $8 to attend the opening. Never ever heard of charging to go to an art exhibition. It is the Marietta-Cobb Museum, not a gallery, so I guess they can do whatever they want.

Breaking for lunch. If I start again (vs nap which is very appealing on this humid, overcast day) it will be placing letters on typewriter keys.

I made a change to the red typewriter painting today. I’d tried to do a simple background. Hated it. I should just accept that I’m the visual equivalent of a hoarder. Anyway, decided to add back in one of the two rows of books that are behind the typewriter in my source photo.
Here’s the simple background from before. Just…vague. It didn’t work for me. At all.
And here’s how it looks after I worked on it today. I am much, much happier.

Just wait until I add detail, like titles and the slender edges of the pages, and the disintegrating covers of these well-worn books.

Roughed in the cartoon poster, messed around with the edges of the frame, deepened the shadows and woodgrain on the right hand shelf, added some complexity to the variation of cad yellow light, Indian yellow and ocher, on the yellow case.

Doing the cartoon poster was a push-pull between the background and the drawing. A better draftsman than I would have plastered it with off-white and added the black outlines of the drawings after that dried, but it required serious effort to get the drawing right, even using a grid. I used some careful variations of neutrals and left the edges visible.
Eyes watering from all the pollen flying around, but it’s worth it. The whole city looks like a society wedding, or a baptist funeral, or small flower shop after a big delivery.

After weeks of more time spent planning my trip than painting, I got back in front of the easel and it felt so good.

Last time I pushed this along, it was all about the background. Today I worked on the keys and the stack of papers on the left.

Last week worked on the yellow typewriter, redrawing the poster in the frame on the left, and doing delicious edges on the photo on the right.

In two pieces of unrelated news, I’m thinking of doing some small paintings of sphinxes. Not sure why, but not sure I have to have a reason either.

The second bit of news is I’ve gotten acceptances from two of the four juries shows I applied to. The jury is still out on the other two, but I am feeling optimistic. I am really glad for the Catch & Release series to have found a venue.

Reworked the dandelion yellow case, the black keys with their multiple blue highlights, and another layer on the left hand picture frame. I added the little knob that sat loose on the table and a glimpse inside the top of the typewriter. Finally, I added the B&W photo of a painting (it looks like one of the many on the theme of Christ decent from the cross or being laid in his tomb) propped on the open book. That part I painted upside down, which helped me to focus on volume and form, and ignore unhelpful detail.

Worked on adding the book, The Adventures of Mabel, especially the cover line drawing. Started filling in the stack of newsprint and magazines beneath it. Also the glimpse of the typewriter’s interior and the ql logo.

The Adventures of Mabel, by Harry Thurston Peck, was my favorite bedtime story. It was published in 1916, and I imagine it was my mother’s before I got a hold of it in the 1950s

I remember reading this book over and over again as a child. Mabel whistled a tune to calm the animals, and she could gentle any beast with it, from hungry wolf to rampaging stallion. Looking back, it was a version of Peter and the Wolf for girls, only using kindness, ingenuity and courage, rather than bravado and trickery.

Winter storm watch outside, canary yellow typewriter inside. Started with the top of the supporting shelf – there’s a lot of grain to work in and general texture yet to come – and the dark beneath the shelf. Roughed in the bi-level shelf to the right that the book and B&W photo are propped on, and the typewriter got one more layer of yellow.